FCC Defends Pace of National Broadband Plan Reforms

The FCC went on the defensive Wednesday, saying it had implemented 80 percent of the National Broadband Plan, countering media reports that more than half of the plan’s recommendations were lingering in the agency’s backlog. Of the action items released in April, 80 percent have been completed, a commission spokesman said Wednesday. The broadband plan’s first anniversary is Thursday. The plan carried 218 recommendations with it, but only about half involved the FCC’s jurisdiction, the spokesman said. Another quarter involved Congress and the rest went to state and local regulators, the spokesman said.

The commission will have completed 90 percent of the plan’s recommendations by July, the spokesman told us. In a January update, our affiliated newsletter Communications Daily reported that by year-end 2010, 21 of 68 action items set up by the report remained incomplete. A spokesman said in January that by the one-year anniversary the FCC projected work on the plan would be 86 percent complete.

The FCC has not acted on some high-profile items, such as scheduling an auction of the 700 MHz D-block. It has moved to check various items off the list since January, perhaps most significantly approving a rulemaking notice on changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regimes. In the next few months, the agency is expected to finish the USF rulemaking, push forward on E-rate reform and start an FCC website that improves public access to information, the spokesman said. The Benton Foundation provides a rolling update on commission progress on the plan, at http://xrl.us/bim37x. The agency’s own scorecard is at http://xrl.us/bim4wn.

The U.S. government has done a good job overall of implementing the “National Purposes” section of the broadband plan, a panel of government officials who drafted the purposes section said Wednesday. The panel included Eugene Huang, senior advisor to the White House chief technology officer; Mohit Kaushal, executive vice president of West Wireless Health Institute; Jennifer Manner, Public Safety Bureau deputy chief; Steve Midgley, a deputy director of the Department of Education; Nick Sinai, a senior advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and broadband plan architect Blair Levin.

The White House has instituted a “cloud first” policy for information technology contracts, and nearly 82 percent of government agencies have signed onto the cloud networks, panelists said. Challenge.gov has helped generate tens of millions of dollars in research and development investments and some 100,000 pregnant women signed up for “Text for Babies,” a program that automatically sends prenatal reminders and which is now being exported internationally, panelists said. Huang said the FCC “really hasn’t promoted” the plan’s recommendations that would increase the efficiency of and access to government data. Levin has criticized FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski for being more focused on public relations than on good public policy.

Levin said Wednesday that the commission ought to set a public deadline for congressional action on the D-block spectrum. If Congress doesn’t move within in the year, the FCC ought to auction it, he said, “because the worst use of spectrum is not using it.” The agency is authorized to auction off the D-block.